Nighttime is the playpen of worldly delights. It’s full of fantasies of someone beautiful showing up unexpectedly…breathing heavily… and then the sound of delicately perfumed black lace dropping to the floor. You hear strange soft noises in the attic in the middle of the night. And there’s no one else around so you have unlimited access to all the oreos in the closet. Night…is all right.
Morning…is not. As far as I’m concerned it’s appropriate that the other meaning of the word morning is what you do at a funeral. I take pride in the fact that I have a pretty good wake-r upper in my head. Very seldom does my alarm clock actually go off. I can wake up pretty much when I need to…right on time. But this was one of the few days that actually started with the annoying sound of my alarm clock. I call my alarm clock the “Dawn Cracker”…because I usually set it for noon, or the crack of dawn whichever comes first. That’s ok because I work out of my home office, and it doesn’t really matter what time I start or stop work…as long as I get the job done.
I used to really enjoy doing late night radio…It was a very special feeling…sitting in a small studio with just a desk lamp, a couple of turntables, a mic and a telephone, talking to the world on WBZ in Boston…then later on from studio 2b on the second floor of the RCA building on WNBC in New York. I had a name for that feeling in my head. I called it my “Huddle.” It was like I was the quarterback of a team of listeners who were gathered around me for mutual protection. We had a goal…the goal was simply making it through the night.
But for various reasons…mostly having to do with making a living…I also did early morning radio. Hideous. The only person on the planet who looks good early in the morning is my Lady Wonder Wench. That’s why the good Lord made it so hard for us to get our eyes open early in the morning. When we first get up, our hair looks like we stuck a wet toe in a hot socket… our faces are a little off center from sleeping on a lumpy pillow, we have stubble sticking out of our chins, no make up…what a mess.
If you actually saw each other clearly early in the morning, the price of brown paper bags of exactly your head size, and the head size of your nearest and dearest would soar beyond the means of most middle class families. When they talk about traffic snarls in the morning rush hour, that doesn’t just refer to too many cars on the road, it also refers to the expressions on the driver’s faces.
I don’t deal well with mornings. Take things like breakfast. Who wants a cereal that goes snap pop and crack when you pour milk on it. I want a cereal that just lies there in the bowl and gets nice and soggy…quietly. The cereal makers don’t understand that. They talk about how when you feed your kid their cereal, your kid will have lots of energy. WRONG. You want to find a cereal to feed your kid that will sap his energy…calm him down. Those idiots pour sugar all over kid’s cereal. Kids are wild enough without giving them a sugar over dose. What are those people thinking ? Parents don’t want even more energetic kids. We want a little peace and quiet.
I had to take the Long Island Rail Road to work for a while. Every morning, I rode in an over crowded coach looking at what seemed like millions of other guys who were, like me, all desperately hoping the coffee would kick in soon. It was a look of loathing. And the feeling was mutual I’m sure.
Nothing interesting ever happens in the morning. If you’re not scrambling to get to work, you’re out jogging. I have never seen a jogger with a smile on his face. Have you ? Everything is in a hurry in the morning. I hate that. Why should we hurry ? We’re all going to get hit with an asteroid eventually anyway. And who says we have to get all dressed up, and start work at exactly 9 am. Why should we get all dressed up in the first place. That’s the morning attitude. The night time attitude is more like, “It’s not what you wear, it’s how you take it off that counts.” I like that a lot better.
Dick’s Details Quiz – All answers are available in the current podcast at www.DickSummer.com
 1- What’s the smelliest problem astronauts have reported from space ?
2- How will we know when the “Mother Ship” has landed ?
3- What’s the biggest problem that Bolivia has with its Coast Guard ?
Remember – Dick’s Details take your mind off your mind.
Got some really wonderful E-mails this week. By the way, my E-mail address is Dick@DickSummer.com …if you’d like to get in touch. Here’s part of a note from a former member of my radio “huddle”…proud Podcast Participant Charlie K…he says, “There’s a lady with whom I shared the front seat of a 62 Fairlane, listening to you doing Lovin Touch on the air. She was a high school sweetheart of 3 and a half years who I let get away when we went our separate ways to “grow up” during college. It took us 40 years to correct that mistake. Today, we’re back together for “the rest of the run.” I’ll be sharing the holidays with her in North Carolina, listening to your Lovin Touch cd together…just like old times.” It’s a necessary process…growing up. And it’s ok as long as you don’t over do it. There’s a story called “Growing Up” in that Lovin Touch Personal Audio CD. It’s in the current podcast. If you like it, you can just keep the podcast. Or if you want a fresh copy, just go back to the icon on the opening page of this web page, and click on the Lovin Touch icon.
Let me leave you with the words of “Big Louie, his own bad self…the chief mustard cutter of the Louie – Louie generation.” He says, “Don’t let them tell you it’s always darkest before dawn. It’s really darkest when you don’t pay your electric bill.”